Make a Donation

Subscribe to Our Feeds

The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 10.1389 Friday 6 August 1999.
[1] From: David Evett <
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
>
Date: Thursday, 5 August
Subj: Re: SHK 10.1380 Is this British?
[2] From: Karen Peterson-Kranz <
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
>
Date: Friday, 6 Aug 1999 18:17:56 +1000
Subj: Re: SHK 10.1380 Is this British?
[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: David Evett <
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
>
Date: Thursday, 5 August
Subject: 10.1380 Is this British?
Comment: Re: SHK 10.1380 Is this British?
>So a hypothesis to destroy: the personal contemporary interpretation is
>a North American phenomenon.
I'm not sure how widely to apply Brian Haylett's "personal
contemporary." But the context suggests that he is referring to what
used to be called biographical and historical approaches to the work-a
mode surely represented by the recent conference on the Lancastrian and
Catholic connections of the Shakespeare family, at which I assume
(correct me if I'm wrong) most of the participants to have been British.
Dave Evett
[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: Karen Peterson-Kranz <
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
>
Date: Friday, 6 Aug 1999 18:17:56 +1000
Subject: 10.1380 Is this British?
Comment: Re: SHK 10.1380 Is this British?
Brian Haylett writes:
>This group has lately carried a lot of speculation on the relationship
>of elements in the plays and sonnets to facets of Elizabethan life and
>society. At first, I felt this was part of what the British Press know
>as 'the silly season', but the contributions are evidently sincerely
>meant. Yet it all seems very alien somehow. Of course Shakespeare writes
>from the experience of his own society but actual allusion seems very
>limited: such things as Banquo and James I, Mistress Mall, perhaps Dr
>Lopez, just possibly Richard II as Elizabeth. The sonnets are obviously
>a special case, but even so, speculation in established English
>criticism this century has been rare, to say the least. Even A. L. Rowse
>was Cornish, for goodness' sake! And before him, you are off to the
>Irish Wilde.
>
>So a hypothesis to destroy: the personal contemporary interpretation is
>a North American phenomenon. What should we make of it, if true? Is it
>also evident in academic journals?
Interesting question and hypothesis. Since I'm just an ignorant
colonial, I'll allow myself a couple of questions before rushing into
this one. What, exactly, constitutes an "actual allusion"? Who and
what, exactly, constitutes "established English criticism"? (I take it
that you emphatically do not mean British or UK criticism-any further
criteria or delimiatations of which we should be aware.) Finally, what
is a "personal contemporary interpretation"?
Marginally yours,
Karen Peterson-Kranz
University of Guam